though it was, Emily managed not to laugh. The boy was quite observant. J.R. had the puffing of cheeks down to an art form.
Jake finished with his customer and hurried back to his father. “Dad, I am not firing Mrs. Miracle.”
“No, you’re not. I am,” J.R. said. “It will give me great pleasure to make sure she never works in this store again.”
“What did she do that was so terrible?” Jake demanded.
“She insulted me and meddled in my personal affairs,” his father burst out.
“How?” Jake asked, calm and collected. He was the perfect contrast to his father, who waved both arms wildly and spoke loudly enough to attract attention from every corner of the third floor.
When J.R. didn’t answer, Jake shrugged and said, “Sorry, Dad, I need her.”
Emily smiled ever so sweetly.
“She’s out of here,” J.R. roared, making a chopping motion with his arm. She thought he resembled an umpire signaling a strikeout.
Jake shook his head. “She’s our best sales associate by a mile, so if she goes, we might as well close down the entire department. You wouldn’t want that, would you, Dad?”
J.R. hesitated.
“And if we close the department, you won’t have a chance to prove how wrong I was by ordering five hundred Intellytrons,” he said, as if that should be sufficient inducement to keep her on staff.
Emily suspected J.R. wanted Jake to fall flat on his face over this robot. He’d pay a high price for being right—and, as a matter of fact, he was dead wrong. She’d seen for herself how popular the toy was. She’d hoped it would be and had done her best to sell it. However, after the past twenty-four hours, she didn’t need to try very hard; the toy sold itself. Apparently, its sudden popularity had begun like so many trends, on the West Coast. Now, the moment someone heard that Finley’s still had robots in stock, they dashed over. Then they couldn’t whip out their credit cards fast enough.
“I’d better stay,” Emily murmured to Jake. “As much as I’d like to walk away right now, I wouldn’t give your father the satisfaction.”
J.R. stomped his foot.
“Are you having a temper tantrum?” she asked sweetly.
Jake only laughed. “Dad, I think it might be best if you went back to your office now. Or you could go home.”
“This is my store and I’ll stay anywhere I darn well please.”
Jake leaned closer to his father and whispered, “You’re scaring off my customers.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“We want customers, don’t we, Dad? Isn’t that the whole idea?”
“Don’t get smart with me,” J.R. muttered.
“Yes, Dad.” Jake winked at Emily, who winked back.
J.R. must have caught sight of what they were doing. “What’s that about?”
“What?” Emily asked, again the picture of politeness.
“What?” Jake echoed.
Seeing that he’d forfeited even the pretense of control, J.R. sighed. “Forget it.”
“I can stay on, then?” Emily asked the store owner.
“Why ask me? I seem to have lost complete control of this company to a man I no longer recognize—my son.” With that he marched toward the elevator that would deliver him to his private office on the fourteenth floor.
Chapter Eleven
People are funny. They want the front of the bus,
the middle of the road and the back of the church.
—Mrs. Miracle
Holly knew she couldn’t postpone calling Bill Carter, since the boys wanted to get together two days from now. It would be petty to allow her awkward relationship with Bill to stand in the way of her nephew being friends with his son.
The problem was how to approach him. She waited until Gabe was in bed on Wednesday night. Then she drew in a deep breath and looked up Bill’s home number, which she’d made a point of erasing from her mind—and her phone. She hated feeling nervous about this. It was a courtesy call and nothing more.
Bill picked up on the fourth ring, when she was about to hang up, almost relieved he hadn’t answered. Then all of a sudden, she heard, “Hello.”
“Bill, it’s Holly.”
“Do you realize what time it is?”
“Uh, yes. It’s nine-thirty. Am I calling too late?”
He didn’t respond immediately. “I know why you’re calling and I—”
“You do?” So all this angst had been for nothing. She should’ve noticed earlier how silly she was being, how badly she’d overreacted.
“It’s about Tiffany, isn’t it?”
“No … who’s Tiffany?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
Obviously she didn’t. “Sorry, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes here. I don’t know any Tiffany—well, other than the one I met through work. I’m calling about Billy.”
“My son?”
He sounded both relieved and worried, which confused Holly. “Listen, can we start over?” she asked.
“It’s too late for that.”
Just how obtuse was the man? “I don’t mean our relationship, Bill. I was referring to our conversation.”
“Just tell me why you called,” he said, with more than a hint of impatience.
“I’m trying to, but you keep interrupting me. This isn’t an easy phone call for me and your attitude’s not helping.” If Bill was a decent human being, he should understand this was difficult and appreciate the courage it had taken her to contact him. The fact that he didn’t angered her. “No wonder the two of us aren’t dating anymore,” she muttered.
“Okay, fine. But what’s that got to do with my son?”
She sighed loudly. “Since you haven’t worked it out for yourself, I’ll tell you. Billy and Gabe have become friends.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Well, I—” Before she could answer his rudely phrased question, he broke in.
“Wait a minute,” he said suspiciously.
